Restrictions:
Editorial use only
THIS IMAGE MAY NOT BE USED TO STATE OR IMPLY THE ENDORSEMENT BY AIP OF ANY PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Caption: MODEL RELEASED. William Shockley (1910-1989), US physicist and co-inventor of the transistor. He is holding a transistor by a solid state circuit (right). Shockley worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs) with his researchers John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. In December 1947 they created the first transistor, a solid state switch now used in practically every electronic device. The three men shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics for this work. Shockley later fell out with the other two over that and subsequent work.